Best Actor (Musical or Comedy)

Nominees:

Johnny Depp -- Sweeney Todd

Ryan Gosling -- Lars and the Real Girl

Tom Hanks -- Charlie Wilson's War

Philip Seymour\ Hoffman -- The Savages

John C. Reilly -- Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

Predicted Winner: Johnny Depp

This just in from Deadline Hollywood: Though an official word has not hit the internets just yet, DH is reporting through their sources that NBC has indeed gone ahead and canceled the Golden Globes telecast currently scheduled to air live on January 13. Instead, what they are going to do is air a news broadcast announcing the winners. DH says: "It will consist of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association handing out Golden Globes to the winners, who will then pick up the awards and pass through a press room for photos and interviews." Sounds sort of lame, but at least the media will get their photos of the actors and actresses all dolled up (should they decide to dress for the event), which will come along with quotes and what have you.

By the sounds of it, there won't be any sort of ceremony whatsoever; kind of like a high school graduation where you walk up to the podium, shake hands with the Principal, and walk off stage. (Only instead of walking off stage to your parents smiling faces, you get a room full of media asking all sorts of boring questions.) Fun! Score one for the WGA -- they've brought down one awards show, now let's see if this thing carries over to the Oscars, which, once the whole Globes thing is over, will probably become a very hot topic. We here at Cinematical will still go ahead with our Globes prediction post later this week, and we'll bring you the winners as soon as they're announced. See the full list of Golden Globe nominees over here, or head on over to Moviefone's official Golden Globes page.

UPDATE: It's official.

While sites like ours struggle to decide how, in fact, we're going to cover the Golden Globes, Deadline Hollywood tells us that a number of key decisions were made late today. Firstly (and probably the most important), SAG has officially announced that none of the actors or actresses will cross the picket line and attend the awards ceremony on January 13. That was an expected decision, but still one that kind of shocks you. However, DH claims NBC is still moving forward with preparations to air the make-shift ceremony on their network. With who in attendance? Got me.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association issued the following statement: "The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has been placed in an extremely difficult position with the ongoing Writers Guild strike. We are making every effort to work out a solution that will permit the Golden Globes to take place with the creative community present to participate. We hope to announce a resolution to this unfortunate predicament on Monday." Personally, I'm not sure what the hell they're going to resolve by Monday, but I would expect NBC to fold and not televise the ceremony. How could they with no one showing up? And how ridiculous would it look if some fat studio exec was standing on stage, handing out award after award to folks who aren't there to accept them? This is what NBC wants the entire country watching? I don't think so.

Here's SAG's statement: "After considerable outreach to Golden Globe actor nominees and their representatives over the past several weeks, there appears to be unanimous agreement that these actors will not cross WGA picket lines to appear on the Golden Globe Awards as acceptors or presenters. We applaud our members for this remarkable show of solidarity for striking Writers Guild of America writers."

And here's the WGA's statement: "We are grateful to our brothers and sisters in SAG for their continued solidarity and support. The entire awards show season is being put in jeopardy by the intransigence of a few big media corporations. We urge the conglomerates to return to the bargaining table they abandoned and negotiate a fair and reasonable deal with writers to put this town back to work."

And here's Nikki Blonsky's statement: "Motherfu**ker son of a b*tch! This was my chance! You fu**kers!"

And here's Cinematical's statement: "We made up Nikki Blonsky's statement, but you have to imagine the poor girl is pretty pissed. Plucked from obscurity to star in Hairspray, nominated for an award, and she can't even show up. We feel you Nikki ... we feel you. Hug?"

While it's a new year, the same old back-and-forth continues. Yesterday, there appeared to be a light at the end of the Golden Globes tunnel, as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (or HFPA) sent out a press release claiming to have resumed talks with the WGA in an attempt to get that same sort of interim deal the WGA made with The David Letterman Show and Worldwide Pants, which would allow writers to pen scripts for the Golden Globes ceremony. That deal isn't so much about getting people to write the "witty" banter between stars on stage as it is finding a way to still televise the event and get people to show up.

But HFPA's play-nice propaganda was a bit premature, as the WGA later put out a statement saying they still intend to picket the Globes ceremony as planned: "Dick Clark Productions is a struck company. As previously announced, the Writers Guild will be picketing the Golden Globe Awards. The WGA has great respect and admiration for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, but we are engaged in a crucial struggle that will protect our income and intellectual property rights for generations to come. We will continue to do everything in our power to bring industry negotiations to a fair conclusion. In the meantime, we are grateful for the ongoing support of the talent community."

So where is this heading? Well, most likely the ceremony will not be televised (unless a miracle agreement is reached), and HFPA will cross their fingers and hope that the WGA will not picket if the event is not televised, allowing actors and actresses to attend the ceremony, as well as the more important (and expensive) after parties. And you should care ... why?

[via Deadline Hollywood]

I'm sure a lot of you don't care either way, but there's now a chance The Golden Globes ceremony scheduled to air live on NBC this January 13 may not show up on the boob tube at all. Anne Thompson reports over on her Thompson on Hollywood blog that word from within the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (or HFPA) is that one option -- should the writers still be on strike on that day -- is to not televise the ceremony in order to ensure a high celebrity presence. Call me a moron, but I'm not sure of the difference between televising an event and not televising an event as it pertains to "crossing the picket lines." Thompson's article makes it sound like actors are allowed to cross the picket lines if the Globes aren't televised, though I just assumed they wouldn't cross the picket lines regardless. Maybe I'm missing something though; feel free to clue me in.

As it stands right now, the Globes won't have any writers to pen those presentation speeches as the WGA has already turned down a waiver which would allow writers to work on the show. Additionally, it's believed that if the show was to go on as planned -- with the WGA out picketing in full force -- a good majority of actors and actresses would not cross the picket lines. Not televising the show, however, also brings into question what sort of contractual obligations HFPA has to NBC. As Thompson points out, "If the show is not televised, NBC will lose the revenue it would have generated via advertising (the Globes show earns strong ratings), and the Globes will lose the money they would have been paid. But at this point it is much more important to the HFPA (which has enough cash in its coffers to miss one year's telecast) for the Globes show to go on with celebrities walking down that red carpet (even with no writers to pen the presentation speeches) to present and accept awards than for them to face the possibility that most stars will not cross an active picket line."

What say you?